The Charge

Opening Statement

Laws were made by Man, and Man is imperfect. Such is the case with Dr.
Kimble, falsely convicted in the Indiana State Court for murdering his wife.
Unfortunately the large hand of fate moves in the darkness, wrecking the train
carrying him to death row. Now Richard Kimble is free, and he thought he was off
the hook, until he got subpoenaed to appear for a retrial...on DVD!

Facts of the Case

A fugitive must always be watching his back, carefully planning every move,
and ready to jettison his past at a moment's notice. Dr. Richard Kimble is a man
on the run, and we're there with him as he travels from town to town across the
United States, hunting for that one-armed man...the man that somehow killed his
wife. That's how it goes in the thrilling, episodic world of The
Fugitive.

Debuting back in 1963, The Fugitive started off slow in the ratings,
but quickly became one of the biggest hits of the decade. It's easy to
understand why: the show balances the overarching plot of Kimble's hunt for the
one-armed man with localized episode-specific conflicts. Kimble, played by the
lovably desperate David Janssen (Harry O), travels from town to town,
trying to blend in by performing odd jobs and picking average American names.
All the while he is chased by the obsessive Lieutenant Gerard (Barry Morse), who
will go to the ends of the earth to uphold the law.

Each episode follows a strict formula found in all QM Productions: a
narrator introduces the show and sets the premise for the episode, which is
broken up into four acts and an epilogue. The show ends with the narrator
returning to remind us that Richard Kimble is still...the fugitive.

This debut season jumps right in, with Kimble already on the run for months
at the start of the first episode. Over the next 14 episodes in the set, he
travels to small towns in Utah, California, and West Virginia, among many other
places, and gets in all sorts of mixed-up situations. One episode has him
working as a cut man for a boxing champ, and another has him working with some
Norwegian sailmakers in California (one of which is played by Robert Duvall!).
He's able to blend in at these jobs, but his education as a doctor and his
sophisticated way of speaking always make people a little suspicious. By the end
of the episode, the threat of being captured is stalking him again and he must
move on to another town.

Disc One * "Fear in a Desert City" * "The
Witch" * "The Other Side of the Mountain"

Disc Four * "Glass Tightrope" * "Terror at
High Point" * "The Girl from Little Egypt" *
"Home is the Hunted"

The Evidence

When I think about all the crap Dr. Richard Kimble is going through to find
his wife's killer, and then I look at all the stuff O.J.Simpson is going through
to find his wife's killer...well, it's pretty clear Kimble is
innocent.

The Fugitive has been called one of the best dramas to come out of
the 1960s. Once you start watching this show today, it's easy to see why. From
the very first episode, when I met Kimble posing as a bartender in Tuscon,
Ariz., I was instantly drawn in to this man's plight. The show does an excellent
job of presenting local conflicts for Kimble to get involved with, while never
losing sight of the two main threats in his life: Lt. Gerard and the one-armed
man.

David Janssen plays the role of Kimble with sophisticated subtlety. Kimble
seems innocently naïve, while never ceasing to surprise the viewer with
some clever means of escape. He's a doctor, a scholar, and a traveler, a nobody
and everybody all at the same time. Janssen is so subdued as Kimble that it made
me anxious to even watch him. Don't just stand there silently and take this
abuse, Kimble...tell 'em you're innocent!

Lt. Gerard, the only other real reoccurring character in the series, is
another story altogether. He's a driven detective who is willing to risk
everything, even the love of his family, to uphold the law and arrest Kimble.
The show constantly challenges Gerard's belief in Kimble's guilt, and he always
replies "the Law says he's guilty!" Morse plays Gerard extremely well,
injecting him with just enough humanity to make us care about him. You almost
pity the man for being so dedicated to finding Kimble.

The Fugitive is a show that challenges the viewer to draw conclusions
about people in all walks of life. The supporting actors in each episode range
in their ability, some playing their roles with absolute realism while others
ham it up. But Kimble rarely stumbles upon the normal type of folk you find in a
show; instead he mixes it up with a lot of social rejects and stereotypes. The
show isn't afraid to show Kimble working with illegal immigrants in an onion
field or battling drunken hillbillies in West Virginia. There's something to be
said of the fact that in most episodes, his identity is called in to question
because of the way he talks (which is more deliberate and educated than the
rest).

The 15 episodes in The Fugitive: Season 1, Volume 1 are fairly
consistent in quality, with a few standing out from the crowd as being
superlative. In "Smoke Screen," Kimble must deliver a baby while in
the middle of a forest fire. In "Nightmare at Northoak," Kimble saves
a group of kids from a burning bus and is embraced by an entire community while
being identified in the national news. Surprisingly, it's not until the last two
episodes of the set that we begin to actually learn the details surrounding the
murder of Kimble's wife. In "The Girl from Little Egypt," Kimble has a
series of flashbacks about fighting with his wife over adoption and then
discovering the one-armed man. And in the last episode of the set, "Home is
the Hunted," Kimble travels back home to be with his sick father. These
four episodes are the best in a set that is great all around.

One thing I realized while watching this show is that it is clearly perfect
for the era in which it was made. The early '60s has just the right balance of
technology and manpower to make this interesting. While I love the film
adaptation with Harrison Ford, a show like this made in the 21st century would
just be boring. A man simply can't travel like Kimble did for four seasons
without any identification. It's a show that really serves as a time capsule of
the '60s, and it's aged to perfection.

The video quality of The Fugitive is surprisingly good given its age.
The show was transferred from its original negative, providing an extremely
crisp picture most of the time. The show has deep, pure blacks and whites with a
good range of gray in between. There are occasional spots where some grain
creeps in or a scratch appears at one of the edges, but otherwise it's
clean.

The audio for the show sounds pretty good as well. All of the voices come in
nice and clear, and the music is loud and robust. The show had an excellent
theme song by Pete Rugolo, while the rest of score consisted mainly of stock
music. The packaging does state that some music has been changed from its
original version. The sound is presented in Dolby Digital mono, so it's nothing
too special, but it gets the job done.

There aren't any special features in this release, but it's not surprising
given the show's age (and the fact that Janssen passed away in 1980, canning any
idea for a retrospective featurette).

The four discs in Volume 1 come packaged precariously in a standard
DVD case. The case is clear plastic and has one disc on each side, and then a
hinged flap in the middle holding two other discs. The episode listings and
descriptions are on the back of the cover and can be read through the clear
plastic. It's a neat way to package everything together, but I was always a fan
of the slimline cases. The cover design is pretty solid, portraying a colorized
Janssen with a wrecked train in the background. Overall, a good
presentation.

Closing Statement

It's easy to misjudge this show as a relic of the past, but consider giving
it another chance! It's a show that is consistently thoughtful and exciting,
plus it's also a forerunner to The Incredible Hulk, in which each episode
finds the main character in a new locale with a new set of problems.

The Verdict

Guilty of being a true classic in American television. Not guilty of
murdering anyone's wife.